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F.A.Q.

Maaberuna

1.
ON THE PRESENT CRISIS

Question:You say the present crisis is without precedent. In
what way is it exceptional?

Krishnamurti:
Obviously the present crisis throughout the world is exceptional, without
precedent. There have been crises of varying types at different periods
throughout history, social, national, political. Crises come and go; economic
recessions, depressions, come, get modified, and continue in a different form.
We know that; we are familiar with that process. Surely the present crisis is
different, is it not? It is different first because we are dealing not with
money nor with tangible things but with ideas. The crisis is exceptional because
it is in the field of ideation. We are quarrelling with ideas, we are justifying
murder; everywhere in the world we are justifying murder as a means to a
righteous end, which in itself is unprecedented. Before, evil was recognized to
be evil, murder was recognized to be murder, but now murder is a means to
achieve a noble result. Murder, whether of one person or of a group of people,
is justified, because the murderer, or the group that the murderer represents,
justifies it as a means of achieving a result which will be beneficial to man.
That is we sacrifice the present for the future—and it does not matter what
means we employ as long as our declared purpose is to produce a result which we
say will be beneficial to man. Therefore, the implication is that a wrong means
will produce a right end and you justify the wrong means through ideation. In
the various crises that have taken place before, the issue has been the
exploitation of things or of man; it is now the exploitation of ideas, which is
much more pernicious, much more dangerous, because the exploitation of ideas is
so devastating, so destructive. We have learned now the power of propaganda and
that is one of the greatest calamities that can happen: to use ideas as a means
to transform man. That is what is happening in the world today. Man is not
important—­systems, ideas, have become important. Man no longer has any
significance. We can destroy millions of men as long as we produce a result and
the result is justified by ideas. We have a magnificent structure of ideas to
justify evil and surely that is unprecedented. Evil is evil; it cannot bring
about good. War is not a means to peace. War may bring about secondary benefits,
like more efficient aeroplanes, but it will not bring peace to man. War is
intellectually justified as a means of bringing peace; when the intellect has
the upper hand in human life, it brings about an unprecedented crisis.

There are other causes also
which indicate an unprecedented crisis. One of them is the extraordinary
importance man is giving to sensate values, to property, to name, to caste and
country, to the particular label you wear. You are either a Mohammedan or a
Hindu, a Christian or a Communist. Name and property, caste and country, have
become predominantly important, which means that man is caught in sensate value,
the value of things, whether made by the mind or by the hand. Things made by the
hand or by the mind have become so important that we are killing, destroying,
butchering, liquidating each other because of them. We are nearing the edge of a
precipice; every action is leading us there, every political, every economic
action is bringing us inevitably to the precipice, dragging us into this
chaotic, confusing abyss. Therefore the crisis is unprecedented and it demands
unprecedented action. To leave, to step out of that crisis, needs a timeless
action, an action which is not based on idea, on system, because any action
which is based on a system, on an idea, will inevitably lead to frustration.
Such action merely brings us back to the abyss by a different route. As the
crisis is unprecedented there must also be unprecedented action, which means
that the regeneration of the individual must be instantaneous, not a process of
time. It must take place now, not to-morrow; for tomorrow is a process of
disintegration. If I think of transforming myself tomorrow I invite confusion, I
am still within the field of destruction. Is it possible to change now? Is it
possible completely to transform oneself in the immediate, in the now? I say it
is.

The
point is that as the crisis is of an exceptional character to meet it there must
be revolution in thinking; and this revolution cannot take place through
another, through any book, through any organization. It must come through us,
through each one of us. Only then can we create a new society, a new structure
away from this horror, away from these extraordinarily destructive forces that
are being accumulated, piled up; and that transformation comes into being only
when you as an individual begin to be aware of yourself in every thought, action
and feeling.